THE KINETIC INTERPRETATION OF THE DGLAP EQUATION, ITS KRAMERS–MOYAL EXPANSION AND POSITIVITY OF HELICITY DISTRIBUTIONS

Abstract

According to a rederivation — due to Collins and Qiu — the DGLAP equation can be reinterpreted (in leading order) in a probabilistic way. This form of the equation has been used indirectly to prove the bound |Δ f(x, Q)| < f(x, Q) between polarized and unpolarized distributions, or positivity of the helicity distributions, for any Q. We reanalyze this issue by performing a detailed numerical study of the positivity bounds of the helicity distributions. To obtain the numerical solution we implement an x-space based algorithm for polarized and unpolarized distributions to next-to-leading order in αs, which we illustrate. We also elaborate on some of the formal properties of the Collins–Qiu form and comment on the underlying regularization, introduce a Kramers–Moyal expansion of the equation and briefly analyze its Fokker–Planck approximation. These follow quite naturally once the master version is given. We illustrate this expansion both for the valence quark distribution qV and for the transverse spin distribution h1.